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06/11/2013

John's Doctor Who Fanbook #2

You know how you like Doctor
Who? And you know how mint flavoured ice cream is terrific? Put them
together and you have the 70s best ever piece of merchandise.

Ok so we didn’t have dvds or videos or anything actually
but we knew how to out on a Doctor Who
adventure. Just eat tons of Weetabix and you too could re-create the Sea Devils
and other stories or just make up your own courtesy of six different planetary
backgrounds. Thank goodness they weren’t given away with Shredded Wheat or we’d
still be working our way through them!

And below is the third staple of the 70s Doctor Who fan’s unhealthy diet;
chocolate. Of course they didn’t really have to entice us with anything other
than chocolate but an added bonus was an ongoing story involving the Doctor
fighting Masterplan Q. I can’t really recall the minutiae of this but it
involved The Master (of course) and some dinosaurs and do you know what? I
never found out what happened at the end. Before I could eat enough chocolate
the thing finished leaving me ignorant of whether Masterplan Q worked or not.

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society (or as it’s usually
called DWAS) was a revelation after the frugal output of the DWFC. Suddenly
here was an organisation with ambition, lots of things happening and in the
fanzine `Tardis` a real fulcrum that functioned in its day as effectively as
something like Outpost Gallifrey would do later online. Because all we had were
publications (even phone calls were financially impossible) they became packed
with thoughts, opinions, news, interviews and artwork. `Tardis` was not the only
zine around then but set the trend that others would follow. Here are two
random covers including a fairly early one. It only cost 8 pence?! Well, that
was a lot then.Left is the stunning cover of the DWAS Yearbook one of several DWAS
publications including the monthly zine `Tardis` and the newsletter `Celestial
Toyroom`. It shows just how talented the artwork was in these publications. I
wonder what happened to `Drog`? And indeed if that was actually his name?

Here’s a young me circa 1980 looking like I’ve just been
in a rain storm. It’s amazing what we didn’t have then; no selfies were
possible, you had to use a photo booth. Obviously I was well happy to be in the
DWAS (and by the looks of it with everything else).

One of the things the DWAS started was local groups; the
Merseyside one was one of the earliest to start and below is a photo of an early
meeting, probably in 1979, in all its action packed glory. I think this one was
at Philip Ince’s house in Meols, a seasidy place near Liverpool. I’m not sure
what we all find so interesting- probably a slide of Yartek. In case you were
wondering, no-one ever did play the piano.

Can you remember your first time (at a convention?) Well
I can. August 1981 saw me headed to London to finally indulge in the
conventions I’d read about but couldn’t afford. I don’t know how I afforded
this one actually but I’m glad I went. Everyone was there from Heather Hartnell
to John Nathan- Turner and the then current
cast. The event took place in a theatre so we were up on the balcony with the
stalls occupied by merchandise dealers. Despite the gap between us warmth and
bonhomie glided easily to and from the stage. We even cheered slides (yes,
slides!!) and the piece de resistance was the unexpected arrival of Anthony
Ainley in what must be his popularity apex as far as fans are concerned. He
only had to walk on stage to thunderous applause and that was enough. Yet some
of my best memories are away from the auditorium at the Queen Mary College accommodation
where I finally met people with whom I’d only corresponded or heard of via fanzines
as we stood at the entrance watched people arriving. For some reason Matthew
Waterhouse hid beneath a blanket under the car seat as if he was a pop star.
Perhaps, in that scenario, he was. The bar afterwards was basic but we enjoyed
ourselves especially the very loud Mark Sinclair. So anyway I queued for loads
of autographs some of which are here in the convention brochure’s centre pages.